Yesterday I’ve read a few lines about Pidgin in a computer magazine and immediately downloaded it, because it looked very promising. Support of multiple protocols (AIM, ICQ, MSN Messenger, Yahoo!, Google Talk) is exactly what I need for technical support purposes.
Some time ago Trillian was the good option, but then I discovered QIP, which was much better in many aspects. Unfortunately, QIP works with the ICQ protocol only, but I still highly recommend it to the ICQ fans who do not like to mess with plugins. QIP already has a lot of nice features in the standard package.
Pidgin looks rather simple right after install, but it comes with plenty of plugins. There are many useful ones, so check them out. Additionaly, I’ve downloaded Guifications, a customizable plugin for “toaster” popup notifications. You can see here how it looks.
Also, you may need Extended Preferences to remove Pidgin window from taskbar and Window Positions Manager to prevent it from constantly placing new conversation windows in the top left corner.
The interface is very clean, and though it do not have all bells and whistles as the latest ICQs, I still found it very suitable for basic communications.
This is the QIP Messaging Window:
Too many buttons. :( Guess what you need to press in order to add users to your contact list? A small button with an arrow to access the user menu.
This is how Pidgin Messaging Window looks like:
This is indeed the most often used buttons, everything else can be found in the top menu.
Bottom line: this great piece of software supports many commonly used instant messaging protocols, so you will not have the need to install 5-10 separate messaging clients. Pidgin is a freeware and has versions for Windows, Linux, BSD, and other Unixes.
